"Senate passes ed pork to Republican districts," by Jimmy Vielkind, Albany Times Union's Capitol Confidential. It's supposed to be the age of no budget pork. But what do you call aid that gets doled out only to partisan districts? Vielkind reports that Republicans in the State Senate pushed through $9.95 million in aid to schools in Republican districts this week, drawing complaints from their Democratic colleagues. Apparently, it's all within the rules.

“Twitter becomes a key real-time tool for campaigns,” by Karen Tumulty, Washington Post. This piece explores the use of Twitter through examples from both sides of the aisle in Washington, “showing how Twitter is redefining the means by which politicians shape, distribute and refine their messages.” Tumulty writes, “The six-year-old microblogging site came into its own this presidential cycle, but the past few weeks have demonstrated how clearly it has become the tool of choice for getting something into the political bloodstream …”